Slideshow: Google Upgrades Android, Nexus, TV

SAN FRANCISCO -- It could have been Steve Jobs sharing Apple's design philosophy, but the speaker was Sundar Pinchai.

"It's a multiscreen world for our users, so our goal is to deliver an experience that is seamless, consistent, and beautiful by investing in two platforms -- Android and Chrome," said the Google executive who oversees them both.

Jobs set a similar course at Apple using Mac OS and iOS. Pichai also said that the Google products will work across operating systems, including those from Apple and Microsoft.

At a press event Wednesday, he announced small steps his company has taken toward that goal, including developing an upgraded Nexus 7 tablet with Android 3.4 and the Chromecast HDMI dongle for web video.

In the following pages, we provide some details of the new products and snippets from our short conversations with Pichai and Jonney Shih, chief executive of AsusTek Computer Inc. (the Taiwan company making the Nexus 7), who was on hand for the launch.

ChromeCast is a very good product introduced by Google. It it really works well on all the platforms discussed in the article, then it will be a very good help for those who want to connect computing device and a TV. There are many solutions of these sort but most of them are not doing well in terms of picture clarity and resolution. As it is from Google it will be a quality product.

I think the competition between tablets and gaming consoles is legit. It's one of the reasons that ABI Research cited recently when predicting the new generation gaming consoles would not sell as well in their first five years on the market as the previous generation (see Slower Growth Projected for New Gaming Consoles). For hard core gamers, there is no question: they want the most advanced graphics and processor performance. But for casual gamers, I think tablets and smartphones and STB consoles pose a real challenge to the big expensive gaming consoles.

Although I wouldn't consider myself a "gamer" I have sampled many games available for the iPad and I'm not sure they have that much to apologize for, even when compared to their counterparts on the PC or dedicated platforms.

Chromecast is very interesting. I remember when Apple created new products instead of struggling to deliver incremental updates. I'm glad Google has the chops and drive to try new things. I like being amazed and surprised.

Change these days is so fast that the best strategy is do everything. If anyone had told me that small devices will dismantle the gaming consoles few years ago, I would argue that user experience matters and would never be sacrificed. But that is happening in our time. It is perpertual chaos and firms like Google are living the dreams.

Actually! I realize now that if I'm having thoughts on wether to buy a gaming console or a tablet, then this means they are competing between each other. The touch interface of a tablet is very intuitive and kids like it a lot. The only advantage I think the gaming console has is that allows playing two or more players at once. And the games can be big in terms of the story involved and specially if it's an RPG one.

I'm so glad to hear this: "It is clear that traditional game consoles face big competition from small devices." In our family, all work and no gaming makes Jack/Jane a dull boy/girl! Seriously, gaming has been pretty limited on the tablets, after being accustomed to the graphics-rich games on the PC.